Controversial development would bring 121 housing units to Hogan-Pancost property in southeast Boulder

The intense controversy around the proposed Boulder Creek Commons project prompted city planners to put a resolution on the Planning Board agenda calling on all sides to share their information with the city and one another in advance of meetings.

That same controversy caused them to withdraw the resolution Wednesday, one day before a Planning Board meeting.

City Planner Karl Guiler said the resolution was prepared after a contentious January Planning Board meeting in which neighbors opposed to putting housing on the Hogan-Pancost property presented technical data and summoned their own experts to contend the project would make flooding in the area worse.

The proposed Boulder Creek Commons project on the 22-acre Hogan-Pancost property near South Boulder Road and 55th Street calls for a total of 121 housing units.

"Planning Board feels like there is a lot of interest in this project," Guiler said. "It certainly is controversial, and there are some environmental concerns. They don't want to make a decision and not have all the information in front of them."

Guiler said the Planning Board did not specifically request the resolution, and he was not aware of another instance in which such a resolution was proposed or adopted.

"The city is always kind of in between," he said. "Our hope is that the applicant gets us information well in advance of the hearing, which they usually do through the application process, and that the neighborhood would do the same."

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Well-organized residents of southeast Boulder believe the resolution was a slam at them because they have not shared a review of the developer's hydrological study with the city.

Jeff McWhirter, vice president of the Southeast Boulder Neighborhoods Association, said opponents of the project have shared all the rest of their information on the project at their website, hoganpancost.org, and they will share their own hydrologist's review. However, they don't want the developer to be able to use a study neighbors paid for to fix the holes in his own work, McWhirter said.

"I believe that we have been exemplars about being open with the process, and this resolution has the implication that we have not been open," he said. "We are not the bad guys here."

McWhirter said the city staff has not been open with neighbors about incorrect information with the developer's studies.

"They realized that we would be pointing out that the planning department was living in a glass house and throwing stones," he said. "For years, I've been counseling my friends and my neighbors that we need to have faith and trust in staff and in the process. Now I'll have to say to them that I was wrong. Any trust I had in staff has evaporated."

The Boulder Creek Commons development would be made up of 63 market-rate single-family homes, 50 rental units for seniors and designated as permanently affordable, six permanently affordable duplex units and two permanently affordable single-family homes.

The property, which lies in unincorporated Boulder County but is mostly surrounded by Boulder city limits, would be annexed into the city as part of the development plan. The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan in 1977 called out the Hogan-Pancost land as an area that can be considered for annexation.

The development has been delayed for nearly a decade because of the city's South Boulder Creek flood study as well as persistent resistance from neighbors. The development lies in a flood plain, and neighbors are worried about how the new housing would affect flooding and ground water.

The resolution that was to be presented to the Planning Board would have "encourage(d) the applicant and representatives of neighborhoods near 5399 Kewanee Drive and 5697 South Boulder Road to share technical data with each other and with staff sufficiently in advance of its presentation so as to allow adequate time for its review and analysis."

Guiler said the resolution was pulled because the neighbors and the developer seemed "uncomfortable" with it.

Developer Michael Boyers said he'd rather not talk about his opposition to the resolution, except to say that he thought it was "unnecessary."

Guiler said city officials want to stay focused on analyzing the project, which is now in the site review process and expected to return to the Planning Board sometime this fall.

"We can still uphold the intent of information-sharing without the resolution," he said.

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